And then the factories closed, businesses were privatised, people lost their jobs, houses were repossessed, and High Street shops closed down.
Where else would you have built them? On greenfield sites miles from anywhere? Which would have *required* cheap taxpayer funded transport to move the workers to where the factories were - in urban areas - since the occupiers of those homes would patently have been unable to buy cars.
MM
Err, no it isn't.
Couldn't agree more.
And the State is largely to blame. After all, why bother to improve one's lot when the Chancellor will take it all away from you, and if all goes pear-shaped, the State will look after you?
They are the shareholder. They will try to maximise their own return.
Mal
What a silly idea.
Quite a bit of training happens in the first and new worlds anyway, and why should people be prevented from going to work in a different country?
Strange and inapplicable analogy.
In a fundamentally broken public system.
You might, but I certainly don't. It's a question of one's attitude. As soon as collectivist descriptions and notions are spplied to this type of issue the outcome will be poor, simply because people then believe that it is the responsibility of the group or somebody other than them to improve their lot. It isn't.
This is a very defeatist view of life and one which doesn't have to be. Fundamentally, people are happier with less involvement from the state in their affairs, yet the state seeks to increase its influence.
Some people are, and as long as the state bails them out will continue to be.
That isn't really the point, it is one of attitude and economics.
.andy
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The proprietor or perhaps a small group of individuals are the shareholder. The same principles apply
.andy
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Sure I get it.
How do you know your relative does not borrow money?
Cite when I did not?
There is no country in the world where extreme left has worked
They are the investors in the business and quite reasonably expect a return on their investment.
Oh dear. This kind of idealism disappeared long before the decline of the former USSR. The few countries that still attempt to ply this nonsense have corrupt regimes and the population live in abject poverty. Homo Sapiens and planet Earth have largely moved on from the failed experiment of communism.
.andy
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If you say so.
But the point is voting left is sometimes even more right.
The trouble with this notion is that it is thinking only in a simplistic way.
The more sensible approach would be to make the pie larger. Some contributors to that will be those who run a business, others will be those who have other roles. They are all important.
.andy
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Tis me!
Like a friend of mine (who owns a successful business) once said in response to the kind of anti-businessman ranting we've keep seeing here:
"When was the last time a poor person gave anyone a job?"
Mal
If the pie is not made larger then the greedy bastard always take two slices and still doesn't care if someone gets nothing. The royal family and the British aristocracy come to mind. There may be a recession, but if the tenant at farmer can't pay rent, out he goes.
Thank you.
You are confused. Every tried therapy?
I disagree. I have actually been to Cuba. It does well considering the needless economic embargo the USA puts on it. If it was left alone it would be the shining light all other third world countries would follow.
There is nowhere extreme right has ever worked, that is for sure.
I did.
Or rob banks too.
Only in your mind
That's a strange idea and is a long way from the truth.
Over the past five years I've had occasion to need to use secondary healthcare with respect to four different issues. None of them would have been regarded as immediately life threatening in the acute sense, although one would be if untreated in the long term and two required surgery. None would be regarded as elective or cosmetic conditions either, all resulting in some impact on quality of life.
I would not have been able to obtain a consultation for any of them, let alone treatment in under a year by using the NHS, for two of them almost two years. Appointments couldn't even be scheduled until 3 months ahead of the available dates.
I was able to obtain private consultation and treatment and follow up in 4 weeks for three of the cases and 8 weeks for the other two - that was simply because time needed to elapse before the follow up. Appointments were scheduled when the physican was available of course, but there was a lot of flexibility. I was able to make changes on two occasions and only slip a week before the next available appointment. The facilities, equipment, staff and treatment were beyond reproach - all of the latest medical equipment etc.
In all of the cases, the consultants carry out both private and NHS work, so it is not correct to say that one sector is robbing the other. All of them said that the main limiting factor is availability of supporting services, not consultant time.
I checked out the credentials of all of the consultants and surgeons that I saw. It is reasonably easy to do so from the GMC web site and then a search for the individual in terms of research papers and clinical work that they have done. Each had published at least two peer reviewed papers.
When one considered the hurdles to achieve accreditation to work at this level, it is frankly amazing that people stay the course, but they do. I talked to every single consultant and surgeon that I met about this. All of them felt that it was important to make their skills available to the public health service but they were too frustrated by its limitations and bureaucracy to allow it to be their sole source of work and income. In effect, most viewed the private sector as a means to bring their income to an acceptable level and to maintain their sanity. Sad but true.
If we look at the economics, again taking a personal example. I don't mind commenting that I am reasonably well remunerated as represented by what I can contribute to my company's business. As a result, I contribute a lot into the state system by virtue of my taxes, NI contributions and my employer NI contributions. These are certainly a great deal more than I would take from the system, even if I were using it. To a point I don't have a problem with that. In a civilised society, I think it's reasonable to contribute for the needs of others and perhaps for one's own needs in later life.
In order to achieve an acceptable level of service for healthcare I turn to the private sector to provide it. The public sector could do something but not in a timescale that is acceptable or useful. To address that, my employer pays for health insurance. This is hardly cheap at several £k per annum. From the financial perspective, this is treated as further income and so the full gamut of tax, employee and employer NI are addeed to it. In effect I have to pay for about half of the cost out of net income. On top of this there is insurance tax of another 5% IIRC.
So adding this all up, I am unburdening NHS facilities, I am providing funding to a source of income for highly skilled clinicians who are not able to derive an acceptable income from the NHS. Yet I get penalised either deliberately or accidentally by the tax system.
I have no problem with contributing "over the odds" for the benefit of others. However, I would like to see a return to me that is equal to the value of a treatment under the NHS. In other words, if a particular piece of treatment costs £3000 through the NHS, then I should receive a voucher for that, or a substantial part of it which I can either "spend" at an NHS facility or at a private one, supplemented by insurance or cash..
For people who can't or don't wish to supplement their healthcare, the state sector would then have more resources to provide treatment because more of the population would be able to afford to seek treatment part funded by themselves if they need it. In terms of prioritisation of public sector services, those with life threatening or seriously debilitating conditions would have more resource available.
The problem comes in the present outdated notion of free treatment at the point of delivery and trying to create a one size fits all service. It doesn't work. The best that can be achieved is mediochre treatment. Those who want healthcare faster and on a more convenient basis are penalised, and those who are unable or don't wish to pay for it draw a short straw as well.
It would be far more effecitve if a more open market were created and people could choose what they want to spend on healthcare vs. other things. The current notion of over management of the available resources to make sure that nobody gets more of the state pie than the next man misses the point completely.
Resource should not go into the equipment for the groundsman to create a level playing field but into the quality of the players and the involvement in the game for the supporters.
The current NHS system is rotten to the core in terms of what is meant to be a service for all. You can always tell how an organisation wants to be viewed by its PR and marketing.
With respect to the NHS, two things spring immediately to mind.
- A series of radio commercials to entice nursing staff back to work for them. The premise was that the person was grateful to the NHS for providing care for her ageing mother. What a crock. For something that is meant to be a public sector service, it is audacity in the extreme to suggest that people should be grateful for what they get
- Illuninated signs on the sides of cranes on construction sites. What do they think they are doing spending money on that type of nonsense? The only explanation is political humbug and correctness. It certainly doesn't benefit any patients.
That is why I have no problem in making the proposition that the current system and notion of it should be shut down and replaced with something that addresses patient requirements rather than outmoded dogma
.andy
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